"You..."
Wen Jiu stepped forward, and Lin Shuheng covered his head and screamed, "Don't come any closer... Don't kill me! Please don't kill me!"
"I don't want to die... I don't want to die yet..."
Wen Jiu paused slightly, turned to look at the man beside her, her eyes bloodshot. "What are you going to do?!"
Gu Xun frowned, puzzled, and asked, "Shouldn't you be happy to see him like this?"
Why should I be happy?!
"He bullied you like that before," Gu Xun laughed, "I taught him a lesson for you."
After saying that, she took out a pistol from her waist, gently took his hand, and placed it in his palm.
"If you kill him, you'll get your revenge."
Wen Jiu's hand holding the gun was trembling.
"Shoot!" Seeing that the person didn't move, Gu Xun's doubt deepened. "Or is it that you don't know how?"
"I'll teach you..."
Click!
The bullet is chambered.
Gu Xun's hand was still suspended in mid-air when the muzzle of the gun pressed against his forehead stopped him in his tracks.
His dark gaze stared at him for a long while before he suddenly smiled.
"You feel sorry for him?"
Gu Xun raised his hand and pointed to the cage. "Would you feel sorry for someone who deserved to die like this?"
"He..." Wen Jiu's breath trembled, and she could barely hold the gun in her hand. "He doesn't deserve to die."
"And I don't need you to do anything."
"If I absolutely have to shoot," Wen Jiu enunciated clearly, "I only want you dead."
A long silence fell over both sides.
Time ticked by, and Wen Jiu finger, which was on the trigger, went numb. Gu Xun suddenly smiled and helped him steady his hand.
He chuckled and said, "Then shoot."
Wen Jiu pursed her dry lips, beads of sweat sliding down her temples, her face as pale as frost.
Gu Xun, as if discovering a novel toy, leaned closer and looked up at him, his unfathomable gaze almost piercing into the other's heart.
You're scared.
Clatter
The pistol fell to the ground.
Overwhelmed, Wen Jiu bent over and squatted on the ground.
A low sob escaped his throat, and his body trembled slightly with pain.
Feng Chi could no longer hold back. Amidst the astonished gazes of the crowd, he stood up, turned around, and left without looking back.
Shen Qianshan instinctively called out to him, " Feng Chi!"
Feng Chi paused slightly, then said coldly, "You have people you want to save, and so do I."
Shen Qianshan choked up, and when he spoke again, his voice was hoarse. "I'm sorry."
"I know what you want to do, and I'm sure A-Jiu would be happy to help in any way she can."
"Since this is what he wants to do, I will do everything I can to help him accomplish it." Feng Chi lowered his head and chuckled softly. "But he's very timid; he'll be scared if he's there alone."
I have to go be with him.
Shen Qianshan responded softly, saying, "Just go ahead, and after this matter is over..."
"Leave Gu Xun to me. I've also sent Feng Yuan's information to your email. After this matter is over, we'll be even."
Feng Chi interrupted him, his voice deep and cold, "I will repay all the favors I Feng Yuan."
"But his use of A-Jiu isn't over yet."
"Once you bring him back, I want him to come and apologize to A-Jiu in person."
Shen Qianshan felt a pang of sadness, and though he opened his lips, he could only utter, "Thank you."
I will definitely bring him back.
The group looked at each other, speechless.
After watching him leave, someone murmured softly, "He must have loved that boy named Wen Jiu very much."
I can't bear to see him suffer even the slightest grievance, nor can I bear to see him be frightened in the slightest.
Wen Jiu was trembling, Gu Xun gently hugged him with a tenderness he had never shown before.
He asked earnestly, "If I were the one inside, would you feel sorry for me?"
Wen Jiu looked up, her eyes misty with a faint fog.
Gu Xun imitated his posture, squatting down in front of him, and patiently repeated, "If I were the one inside, would you feel sorry for me?"
Wen Jiu suddenly thought of a possibility and shook her head in a panic.
Gu Xun chuckled, rolled up his sleeves, revealing a dense network of crisscrossing whip marks.
The hideous old scars and the dark, terrifying background behind the man created a stark contrast with his handsome face and gentle smile.
Wen Jiu's pupils trembled, and she almost wanted to abandon everything and run away immediately.
Escape this swamp.
But in reality, he had no strength left and could only let the person in front of him, smiling, drag him into a deeper and darker quagmire.
"I am an adopted son of the Pei Family, surnamed Gu, and my original name was Gu Xun." Gu Xun spoke calmly and unhurriedly. "My father's name is Gu Song, and he is the Pei Family's driver."
Gu Xun lost his father when he was very young, and his mother's whereabouts were unknown. Pei's father adopted him out of consideration for Gu Song's many years of friendship.
But Pei's father treated him badly.
Gu Xun had a good memory and was very precocious; he knew he was different from others when he was five years old.
He can see through people's ugly desires at a glance and deduce their psychology and emotions by observing their facial expressions.
He knew that Pei's father didn't like him, and Pei's mother and brother also disliked him. Sometimes, even when he was smiling, the disgust in his eyes would show.
He pretended not to know.
He also showed that he liked them very much, that he liked his parents, his older brother, and that he liked to smile.
They attend school normally and interact normally.
It's like wearing a painted mask, playing the role of a vibrant person.
Deep within my soul, however, lies a clear-headed and indifferent self, observing coldly from the sidelines.
Watching her father toy with young girls who had no connections; watching her brother wail in front of the media after hitting someone with his car, yet act with impunity at home; watching her mother coldly wave her hand, tossing out a card to hastily end a scandal.
Yes, a scandal.
Gu Xun, on the second floor, leaned over the stairwell, watching the light card fall, much like that life, so fleeting and uneventful.
Later, he witnessed the end of one tragedy after another, and the deaths of countless people covered in blood.
Until he was discovered and became one of them.
The facade was completely torn off, and he was imprisoned in a small space.
With a blank expression, he listened as Pei's father vividly recounted how he had run over his own father and murdered his own mother.
"He could have easily pretended not to see it, but he asked for trouble by calling the police." The man's face was contorted with rage. "What good would calling the police do?"
"He can't even get to the police station entrance!"
"You're calling the police too? Huh? You're calling the police too?!"
The man grabbed his collar, questioning him with a cold sneer, "Can you even get out of this cage?"
"No." The boy smiled bloodthirstyly, "I won't call the police."
The man burst into laughter.
The next moment--
Warm blood gushed out, the laughter stopped abruptly, and the expression on his face was half astonishment and half blank, like a wild and unrestrained musical movement that suddenly stopped.
The boy stepped over the man's blood-soaked body, threw down the porcelain shards in his hand, picked up the iron whip and dagger beside him, and walked out without looking back.
Having been out of the light for a long time, Gu Xun instinctively closed his eyes the moment he stepped outside.
When he opened his eyes again, he was met with a terrified face from Pei's mother.
Gu Xun tilted his head and asked gently, "Are you going to keep your father company?"
Pei's mother screamed in terror.
That day, he killed everyone in the house.
The barbed iron whip slammed into flesh with a resounding crack, the short knife went in cleanly and came out blood-red, so much so that its original color could no longer be seen.
While he was frantically committing murder and admiring the beautiful, terrified faces of those dying, he detached his soul and coldly examined himself.
The moment the fire ignited behind him, his soul and body merged together.
The boy was reborn from the ashes; from that moment on, Pei Xu was no more.
He used the Pei Family's money to escape abroad, removed the scars from his face, and erased the wounds exposed on his skin. When he put on his clothes, no one knew that the ugly scars on this handsome man's body had long since worsened, festering and oozing pus.
Three years later, on the border of Country M, in a beautiful and peaceful manor, another Pei Family appeared.
Do you remember what I said?
When he lifted the other person's chin with his fingertips, he successfully evoked shivers down their spine, and Gu Xun's body became excited as well.
"The most beautiful things are those that are broken and incomplete; that sense of imperishable decay is the most beautiful art in the world."
Wen Jiu turned his head away, avoiding the other person's touch. He shrank back, covered his ears, and hugged himself tightly.
"Why are you telling me all this?" Wen Jiu, her expression pained. "I don't want to hear it."
But Gu Xun got the answer he wanted from his evasive response.
He said, "You'll feel sorry for me too."
Wen Jiu shook her head, "No, I wouldn't, I didn't..."
"You are," Gu Xun grabbed his wrist, repeating with unwavering certainty, as if speaking to no one else, "Because that's the kind of person you are."
"I thought I could destroy you, bind you, and drag you into the mire."
But you insist on washing away the mud with water.
I thought you had fallen into hell and would never rise again, or that you, like me, had seen through this filthy world and would one day gradually become the same kind of person.
"But you remain as pure as ever."
"I thought you could kill him, kill the person who caused you so much pain for so many years. I thought you would shoot, kill me, this heinous man."
"But you didn't. You didn't even dare to pull the trigger."
"I was jealous of your tenderness for him, so I deliberately brought up these ugly and shameful past events, and as I expected, you felt pity for me."
Gu Xun seemed to want to say everything he had to say in one breath, grabbing Wen Jiu and forcing him to listen to all his words, as if that would leave something behind.
Finally, she said, " Wen Jiu, that's just the kind of person you are."